Happy 57th Birthday, Gaspar Noé! Born today in 1963, this Argentinian film editor, cinematographer, screenwriter, film producer and film director is based in Paris, France.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Noé is the son of Argentine painter, writer and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé.
He is also the son of a mother of Irish descent named Nora Murphy. Noé has a sister named Paula.
Noé lived in New York City, New York until he turned five years old, and his family emigrated to France in 1976 to escape the political situation in Argentina at the time..
The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: Proceso de Reorganización Nacional, often simply el Proceso, or "the Process") was the name used by its leaders for the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
In Argentina, it is often known simply as última junta militar ("last military junta"), última dictadura militar ("last military dictatorship") or última dictadura cívico-militar ("last civil-military dictatorship"), because there have been several in the country's history.
Noé was inspired to become a director after seeing Stanley Kubrick's epic 1968 British/American sci-fi/adventure film '2001: A Space Odyssey' at age seven.
Years later, Noé graduated from the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière (ENS Louis Lumière College) in Paris.
In the early 1990s, Noé wrote and directed his first film with the forty-minute 1991 French drama/crime short film 'Carne'. The short was an introduction to the character of The Butcher, played by French actor Philippe Nahon.
Three of Noé's later films feature the character of a nameless butcher. An angry man, The Butcher seeks revenge on whoever hurt his disabled daughter. These three films make up Noé's Butcher Trilogy.
After working as an actor, cinematographer, writer, and director on some other projects, Noé made his first feature film seven years later. This was the French art drama/crime film 'I Stand Alone'.
The film continues the story of The Butcher (played again by Nahon) after he does time in jail and abandons his daughter. The original French title of the film is 'Seul contre tous', which means "Alone against all".
Four years later, Noé made the film of which he is most famous (or infamous) for editing, shooting, writing and directing. This was the 2002 French drama/mystery crime film 'Irréversible'.
The film contains fourteen scenes presented in reverse chronological order, and are arranged in chronological order.
Filmed entirely in reverse chronological order (literally beginning with the end credits), the film follows a beautiful woman named Alex M (Monica Bellucci), her lover Marcus (Vincent Cassel, who co-produced and was married to Bellucci at the time) and her former boyfriend Pierre (Albert Dupontel).
Later on, they each take justice into their own hands after Alex becomes the victim of a pimp (Jo Prestia) called "Le Tenia" (The Tapeworm), who rapes her.
Upon release, Noé received major public notice and outrage with the controversial film, mostly due to the much-publicized, brutal ten-minute rape scene.
Starring the then real-life married couple Bellucci and Cassel, the film nonetheless took an unstinting look at male violence shown backwards.
'Irréversible' was particularly controversial upon its release for its graphic portrayal of violence, specifically the scene where a man is savagely bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher and its ten-minute long take rape of Alex, who is then brutally beaten into a coma.
The film inevitably had accusations of apparent homophobia as well. Roger Ebert called 'Irréversible' "a movie so violent and cruel that most people will find it unwatchable".
He also argued that the film's structure makes it inherently moral; that by presenting vengeance before the acts that inspire it, we are forced to process the vengeance first, and therefore think more deeply about its implications.
Noé first found financing for the film after he pitched the story to be told in reverse, in order to capitalize on the popularity of Christopher Nolan's 'Memento' (2000).
'Irréversible' was shot using a widescreen lightweight Minima Super16 mm camera. The film consists of about a dozen apparently unbroken shots melded together from hundreds of shots.
This included a ten-minute-long rape and sodomy scene, portrayed in a single, unbroken take. Computer-generated imagery was used in post-production for the penis in the rape scene.
In the second scene out of the fourteen, one can see a poster for Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey', with the tagline "The Ultimate Trip", above the headboard of Alex M's bed as she lays there.
Another example is the scene where Pierre beats up a man's face and skull to pulp. CGI was used to augment the results, as initial footage using a conventional latex dummy proved unconvincing.
During an hour of its running time, the film uses extremely low-frequency sound to create a state of nausea and anxiety in the audience.
Much of the film's soundtrack was composed by French musician, record producer, singer, songwriter, DJ, and composer Thomas Bangalter, one half of the French electronic music duo Daft Punk.
Audience reactions to both the rape scene and the murder scene in 'Irréversible' have ranged from appreciation of their artistic merits to leaving the theater in disgust.
Nonetheless, 'Irréversible' competed and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 55th Cannes Film Festival in May 2002. However, it lost to Roman Polanski's ('Repulsion', 'Rosemary's Baby', 'Chinatown') 'The Pianist' (2002).
In the September 2012 edition of the BFI's British monthly film magazine Sight & Sound, Noé stated that seeing '2001: A Space Odyssey' at the age of seven changed his life, without which experience he would never have become a director.
Noé also cites the 1983 Austrian horror/crime film, 'Angst' (also known as 'Fear') as a major influence as well.
That same year, 'Irréversible' received three votes in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films.
Noé's depiction of gay criminal Le Tenia inexplicably raping the female lead remains the film's most controversial image.
In his defense, Noé has stated, "I'm not homophobic", further stating that "I also appear in Irréversible, masturbating at the gay club", as a means of showing that "I didn't feel superior to gays."
According to Noé's personal life, he is an atheist. He is married to French writer and director of Bosnian descent Lucile Hadžihalilović.
Though an Argentinian and Italian citizen through his parents, Noé has spent the entirety of his professional career in France, though contrary to some reports he is not a French citizen.
According to American assistant professor of film studies at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington Tim Palmer, this shares an attenuated use of narrative, generally assaulting and often illegible cinematography.
'Irréversible' has been associated with a series of films defined as the cinéma du corps ("cinema of the body"), which, according to Palmer, share affinities with certain avant-garde productions.
This includes an attenuated use of narrative, assaulting and often illegible cinematography, confrontational subject material, and a pervasive sense of social nihilism or despair.
'Irréversible' has also been associated with the New French Extremity movement. It is uncompromising and visceral; an essential piece of modern cinema and punctuated by dazzling avant-garde techniques.
Confrontational yet influential, 'Irreversible' has polarized audiences since its release in 2002, making it until now almost impossible to study dispassionately.
Through Palmer's 2014 film criticism book, Irreversible (Controversies), he investigates the spectrum of reactions created by Noé's film.
This involves discussing its pugnacious stylistic design, its on-screen deconstruction of Paris, its international critical reception, and its unexpectedly utopian counterpoints to violence and despair.
Through these observations, Palmer generates a new rational dialogue about the film that challenges any instinct simply to reject or condemn it.
According to Noé's trademarks in film, he often breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience through the use of confronting, and sometimes strobing, typography that aims to "disrupt and disturb" the viewer. This is similar to the typographical methods practiced by Jean-Luc Godard.
Noé has made some seriously disturbing films during his relatively short career. Surprisingly, he has also won several critical awards and festival acclaim for each of his works.
Noé has been active from 1985–present.
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